Elon Musk is wooing voters with cash again—this time in a contentious race for control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
America PAC, a Musk-backed super PAC, is offering $100 to voters who sign its “Petition in Opposition to Activist Judges,” the group announced on X on Thursday.
“Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas,” the petition reads. “By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role—interpreting, not legislating.”
The tactic—which critics say is tantamount to buying votes—is meant to identify likely conservative voters and coax them to the polls.
Musk and America PAC pulled a similar stunt in the run-up to the presidential election, when America PAC offered $47 to anyone who convinced a registered voter to sign a petition to support free speech and gun rights. The Philadelphia district attorney sued, but a Pennsylvania judge declined to stop the practice.
The heavily watched judicial race, which will determine control of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, features GOP-backed former state Attorney General Brad Schimel and Democrat-backed Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who represented Planned Parenthood and other liberal defendants in her private practice.
In February, Tesla filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin to challenge a state law that has barred the vehicle maker from opening dealerships. America PAC and another Musk-backed group, Building America’s Future, have spent more than $13 million on the race, according to the Associated Press.
“Elon Musk has now resorted to trying to buy votes because he wants Schimel to rule in favor of his company’s lawsuit,” Crawford said in a statement on X Friday. “Wisconsinites don’t want a slimy billionaire like Musk or a corrupt politician like Schimel controlling the Supreme Court.”
The race comes just two years after progressives won a majority of the state Supreme Court after electing Democrat Janet Protasiewicz to fill the seat vacated by her predecessor.
As The Daily Beast’s David Gardner pointed out on Friday, Democrats in Wisconsin have made Musk a focus of their messaging in the campaign, releasing a flurry of ads touting his support for Schimel.
“Democrats are furious about Musk, and independents are increasingly freaked out about the way that Musk is attacking things like Social Security and childhood brain cancer research,” Ben Wikler, chair of the state Democratic Party, told Politico. “Our test of our first Musk ad found that it moved likely 2025 voters by 6.2 percentage points.”
